Page 31

GEORDIE

Rachel bangs so hard on the door, that when I rip it open she tumbles through, crashing into me.

“What the fuck, Rachel?” I glare into my sister’s eyes, for once grateful for the towering heels that make her as tall as me, letting her see exactly how pissed off I am.

“Shouldn’t that be my line?” she snaps as she brings both hands to my chest, pushes herself roughly off me, and straightens into a more dignified pose. She tosses back her hair with an angry flick of each hand. “God knows I’ve got the right to ask a few questions,” she spits. “Given you obviously didn’t take any notice of what I told you two weeks ago. What part of ‘don’t hit on my friend’ did you not get Geordie? I thought that should have been fairly easy to understand. Even for you.”

With a slip of the tongue, she tosses out the sort of casual putdown that dogged me for the first eighteen years of my life. Her words slam into me like a prop’s rogue elbow to the throat. My lungs seize, trapping the words inside. When I finally find my voice, regret is already painted on Rachel’s face, but I’m not letting her off just because she’s about to plead guilty.

I’ve always been the amiable one in the family, letting slights slide off my back, but tonight, that changes. I’m going to stand up for myself, for who I am and for what I want, and to hell with her and the rest of them.

“Well, that’s a fucking low blow, Rachel. Even for you,” I bite back.

She flinches a little, but Rachel’s thick-skinned. She doesn’t show when words hurt, and she never backs down. Forged in the same dysfunctional family, we chose different ways of dealing with our father: fight or flight.

I chose flight. That’s why I spent most of my childhood roaming around town on a bike, and why I got myself out of Cluanie as soon as I could.

Until she was eighteen and left this place behind, too, Rachel always fought. She honed her skills against the best, arguing with our father almost daily, never letting him think he’d gotten to her—though I often heard her crying in her room through the bedroom wall. Outside of that room, Rachel never conceded victory, and the old bastard admired her for it, though he wouldn’t let it show. It’s why she’s a kick-arse lawyer earning the big bucks in a top London firm; why she’s got this amazing track record for winning cases.

She’s not going to win tonight. Rachel won’t wear me down with her tough talking. Who the hell does she think she is, storming in here like some damned avenging angel?

I turn my back on her in disgust and walk through to the lounge, seating myself in the enormous armchair that Nathan bought himself to sit in and watch telly. It dominates the space. If I’m going into battle with my sister, I’m grabbing the high ground.

Her heels click on the wooden floor of the hallway. Trust Rachel to be wearing flash shoes on a weekend visit with the family. She follows me into the room and perches on the tiny couch. She clasps hands dripping with too much jewellery in her lap, sitting with long legs tucked neatly to one side, like she’s the fucking newly crowned Princess of Wales. I love my sister, but right now I don’t like her; and right now everything about her—her clothes, her carefully made-up face, even the way her eyes suggest she’s about to apologise—irritates me.

She opens her mouth to speak, and I cut her off.

“You want answers, Rachel? I’m going to give them to you.”

Her mouth closes in a tense line, red lips thin.

“OK,” she says. “Spill.”

“Jenna and I are together. It’s new, fragile, and the best thing that’s ever happened to me. But more than that—and I’m not trying to be an arrogant prick here—I think it might be the best thing that’s happened to her in a very long time.”

“Edinburgh, right?”

“Edinburgh,” I repeat.

My mouth twitches, suppressing a smile, as memories of the best fucking day of my life flood my brain. Rachel must notice, her expression softening.

“I knew it the moment she sent that photo,” she concedes. “And when the two of you were on the big screen—yeah, it could have been a couple of friends having a night out at the footy, or her having some fun for the first time since her mum died—but there was something about her smile. It was so much brighter than I’d seen in ages. Not just since her mum, but since Adam.”

“He didn’t deserve her.” Even the mention of his name leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

“No, he didn’t. But why didn’t she say something to me about the two of you? I text her almost every day. I must have rung her like five times.”

“Oh, come on Rache,” I scoff. For someone so smart, my sister can be a bit thick where relationships are concerned. Growing up with our father taught her there are only two ways to communicate: say exactly what you think no matter how blunt or hurtful—Dad’s preferred style—or hold your secrets close, a survival skill we both learned.

She’s not a subtle creature, which is why she can’t see the reasons Jenna, one of her best friends, would share almost everything with her, but not this.

“Don’t be so bloody na?ve. She knows you. She knew how you’d react—exactly like this.”

“I might not have,” Rachel protests. I harden my expression, calling her out on the lie. A slight flush rises on her neck, and her shoulders sag a little. “OK, yeah, I probably wouldn’t have been cheering about it,” she sighs.

Sensing I’ve made ground here, I lay my cards on the table.

“Look, I’m begging you Rachel. And believe me, after you come bursting in here like this, it’s not an easy thing to do. But I’m begging you. For her sake.”

I’ve gone from berating my sister to pleading with her, as if I’m an opposing lawyer, strategically changing tactics to encourage a sceptical jury onto my side. Her eyes soften, and I know I’m making ground here.

“Please, when Jenna comes downstairs, at least try to be a little accepting of the idea of us together.” I swallow hard and confess the thing I hardly dare admit to myself, let alone say to Jenna. “I care for her, Rache. And she cares for me, even though she’s not ready to come out and say it yet.”

I’m positive I’m not kidding myself on that one. For all Jenna’s claims this is just sex—I bet that’s what she’ll tell Rachel—it’s never just sex when we’re together.

We talk about everything and anything, our guards down. There’s no pretending between us—except for the pretending we’re both OK with this being a casual thing. I let Jenna have all of me, and I don’t think she’s ever had that before, someone who makes themselves vulnerable to her. Behind closed doors—she still believes keeping this secret protects everyone—I know I get all of her too, because I want all of her. The quiet bits and the loud bits; the sharp edges and the softer side; the easy parts and the hard stuff; the neat and the messy. I’ll take every piece of Jenna. Not like the last guy who thought she should give him only the parts he wanted. He’s the reason we’re in this situation now.

“That screw-up she was engaged to? He damaged her—let her think it was something wrong with her, when it was only about him—and she’s scared. Scared I’ll be like him. If you tell her this is a really bad idea, that’s just going to feed her fear. She’ll start to wonder if she’s made another bad mistake, that you think I might hurt her, like he did. I promise you Rachel, I won’t. Let her have this. Let us have this. At the least give us some time to see if we’re right for each other. And then if she decides we’re not and walks away…”

I blink back the vision of Jenna saying those words, telling me it’s over.

“Well, it’ll gut me for sure, but it will be on her terms and she’ll know it wasn’t because she was anything less than the incredible woman she is. Let her work it out for herself, without your judgment. If nothing else, if this ends, she’ll at least have the confidence to go into another relationship with an expectation of respect.”

When I think of Jenna with someone else, I have this sense of a hollow space, deep inside me, opening wide, a lonely place that I’m not sure anyone else can fill. I close it down, determined to do my best to prevent that outcome.

Before Rachel can answer, footsteps sound on the stairs, and Jenna appears, dark hair in a ponytail, face still flushed from the shower. She pauses a moment as we both look towards her. There’s wariness in her expression. That’s not surprising, after Rachel’s crazy banging on the door. Jenna will also be unsure what’s passed between us while she was upstairs. I hope my words were enough to save us.

Somehow she seems to shrink a little as she waits on the landing, like she’s making herself less in the face of Rachel’s presence. I want to scream at her not to do that, but to face her friend like the same fearless, confident woman who wrangles stroppy journalists and social media trolls with ease.

Rachel leans into me, her gold bangles jangling against my wrist as she tugs my hand.

“OK,” she hisses. “But you better not fuck this up.”